I think Justin Amash is a great congressman. Since he first joined I have viewed him as a future leader in the liberty movement with a great talent and now about to win reelection for his fourth term. He’s never ceased to make me not want to throw him a token 50 bucks to his reelection campaign every two years and I don’t want to ever imagine a Congress without him. Yet let it be clear; him winning the Republican nomination for President in 2020 is literally a joke.

First off, let’s begin discussing this with the mention of Rand Paul. Rand Paul was someone who I supported heavily in his bid for president as a Republican and donated to his campaign, helped set up fundraisers for and could be found at the 2015 CPAC running around as a Stand With Rand cheerleader. I was pumped up and excited to see a man who I thought could win and change America. And I saw him get crushed. Miserably crushed to a laughably bad extent in which he sacrificed a lot of libertarian principles and still walked out with borderline nothing in the polls. He flopped and flopped hard.

Why did Rand Paul flop?

No ability to fundraise? Check

Terrible speaking skills? Check

Lame platform which gave Ted Cruz more libertarian moments? Check

Debate performances in which I forgot he was even there? Check

The dumbest haircut of all time? Check

Rand Paul, while as the GOP nominee, would be Superman for me, was just a flop in all forms. It was the let down of letdowns and I’ll blame Rand Paul for losing so badly above anyone else.

Justin Amash takes every negative point of Rand Paul and adds to it.

He doesn’t have any big money contacts…

He doesn’t really speak that well…

The GOP hates his guts and probably prefers Ron Paul more than him…

He does sell out a bit on social issues to the GOP…

He has so little national name recognition, I’m 80% sure Jim Gilmore could out-perform him in that regard…

Justin Amash in 2020 is just a dead idea. He honestly should just stay in the House where he has a clear talent and ability and build up his name trying to get some big bills passed. It’s a cool idea and I would love to see him win, but well… It won’t happen.

This dives into the bigger question.

What do we do in 2020? Who is the person to actually bring liberty in the Oval Office and what’s the strategy there?

I’m going to say it’s not Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, or Rand Paul. That liberty trinity in Congress is the best thing to happen to DC since Robert Taft and Howard Buffet, but the idea any of those three are the guys to do it is insane. Just look at interviews and speeches with them examining access to fundraising and media to realize they have absolutely no shot. So, all three of those are out. Stay where they are, have Massie run for Senate in 2020 and let Rand Paul work to be the Republican majority leader in order to have real growth. Just don’t waste time drafting any of those three for the White House.

There’s two paths. Path one involves Trump winning in 2016 and the second involves the more likely scenario of Hillary Clinton winning in November.

Let’s begin with captain orange, Donald Trump.

If Trump, in some cruel cruel world, does take the victory in November, the answer is very simple on what to do in 2020. Bill Weld. Bill Weld will be 74 years old and a few months younger than Bernie Sanders in 2016. He will be the perfect man to represent liberty in 2020 and able to use the Trump term in order to build up his name for a planned run as the LP nominee in 2020. Plus, with the increasing odds of Johnson/Weld breaking 5%, Bill Weld will have more resources to him with the LP becoming marked as a big party over any other LP nominee ever. That and how Trump winning the White House would ensure a meltdown of the GOP over the next four years. Have Trump duke it out in a primary with Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney in 2020 where he wins holding onto his toupee and it’ll create a vulnerable Trump. Also, with the Democrats, the prospects of Liz Warren and Tim Kaine having a primary battle don’t make the case they could do much better over Granny Nixon currently holding that mantle.

Bill Weld in 2020 making someone such as Jeff Flake, Mark Sanford, Bruce Rauner or hey, Justin Amash as a running mate is ideal. He could bag larger endorsements and raise new sets of money making a slim, but real chance he could actually win nationally and become the first Libertarian President.

But that’s the unlikely story of Trump winning. Now the likely story of Granny Nixon winning.

With that, things get boring. Hillary is bound to horribly screw things up if elected president and I’d give it a whomping 75 seconds until the Tea Party is back with 2018 going hard to the right. I’d also mark about a 99% chance the GOP does win in 2020 with Ted Cruz probably being the guy to become president. Which well, if Ted Cruz can not be a social conservative lunatic who panders to warmongers, I recognizing he’s good on economics and would probably back him. But well… Being the zodiac killer he is, I can’t see that happening.

For 2020, this involves a two tier approach with the GOP and LP. The liberty GOP should try and nominate Jeff Flake: The light libertarian Republican who has been anti-Iraq, pro-amnesty, for lower sentences on drugs, very fiscally conservative and was the only Republican working hard to remove the embargo with Cuba. He has a great charisma to him and as senator of Arizona been a pretty strong player making alliances in the house. If the Ron Paul/liberty movement courted him to the idea in 2017/2018, they could likely move him a bit more anti-war and fiscally conservative on the prospect of having that base walking in. He does this and runs a real campaign where he’s this moderate libertarian and also gets establishment blessing. It’s a rough idea, but a moderately plausible one.

For the LP, the reality holds it is zodiac killer v Granny Nixon 2020. For that, the LP doesn’t really have much options unless Bill Weld or Gary Johnson want to do it. Having anyone from the 2016 LP field just assures a joke that’ll amount to 0.5% of the vote nationally and no serious funds raised. This makes a real case on what needs to happen.

Five ideas…

Mark Cuban – He backed Hillary, which sucks. However, any guy who read Atlas Shrugged four times has to have something operating right in his brain. Maybe the LP needs to teach him public policy a bit more, but I still feel a Libertarian in the making exists. Plus, him as the nominee would actually win.

Tim Draper – This is the lesser known backup to Cuban who’s way, way more libertarian. Any guy who donates five million dollars to split California up into six states and 30 million for school choice is worth a mention.

Penn Jillette – Holy shit, yes. A nationally known name personally worth almost half a billion who is perhaps the greatest speaker in the liberty movement. I already am planning the draft campaign.

John Paul Dejoria – Billionaire who grew up in foster care and is known a libertarian icon. Let’s do it! He also was on shark tank!

Justin Amash – And this is where the article goes back to Amash. If he didn’t want to be in Congress any longer (he should stay there every moment he has life in him), he’d be a great LP nominee. I doubt he’d win or bring as much as the four above, but he’d do as well over better compared to Gary Johnson if the GOP/Democratic nominees are equally awful. He is a great guy and does have a future, but it might not be 2020.

That’s enough for an article I wrote at 7 in the morning after seeing a friend of mine post “Amash 2020” on Facebook. I need cereal, a shower, and the hope the girl laying next to me is on birth control.

This post was written by Charles Peralo.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.